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Oh, what a year that was... The positive side of 2019 is there (if you look carefully) BV staffer HEATHER LEAH SMITH looks back and comes up with a list of the year’s breakthroughs and positives GOOD BUZZ FOR BEES
London is rolling out the welcome mat to nature’s favourite pollinators with a seven-mile corridor of wildflower refuge through the city. Construction began over the summer. In Holland, the city of Utrecht has covered hundreds of bus stops with living green roofs to make them buzz stops too, providing respite for honeybees and other insects, boosting biodiversity and improving air quality. Researchers at the University of Helsinki have developed the PrimeBEE vaccine, which has shown promise in combating the microbial diseases threatening bee colonies worldwide. The scientists hope for a commercial launch within a few years to inoculate the pollinators — and protect global crops
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worth between $235 and $577bn annually.
PLASTIC SNACKS
Over the past two years, more than 50 types of plastic-eating mushrooms have been identified. One variant was found to digest small quantities of polyurethane in a matter of months, and another degraded plastic while growing into an edible snack. Scientists are working on scaling the solutions. Mexican researcher Sandra Pascoe Ortiz has developed a bioplastic made from the juice of the prickly pear cactus, which has a natural breakdown time of only three months — or two weeks in water. If ingested, the bioplastic is harmless to humans and animals. Pascoe Ortiz is being courted by businesses that hope to help
her take her breakthrough from the “laboratory to an industrial process”. Recycling programmes are ratcheting-up the impact. In Rome, metro passengers can now pay for the trip by recycling plastic bottles. The initiative has collected over 350,000 bottles thus far. In Nigeria, Lagos schools have implemented a win-win
Bee happy with wildflower refuges across London
